Return to Me
by SunnydaleGirl
Summary: Willow brings Angel the news of Buffy's death. How does he take it? Complete.


**Summary:** Willow tells Angel of Buffy's death. What does the news do to him?

**Disclaimer:** Characters are property of Joss, I just borrowed them.

**Rating:** PG

**Author's Note:** Warning! This piece gets dark towards the end and there is character death! You've been warned so proceed with caution.

**Song:** "My Last Breath" by Evanescence.**__**

_"Hold on to me love,_

_you__ know I can't stay long._

_All I wanted to say was I_

_love__ you and I'm not afraid."_

          Just hearing his name brought flutters to her stomach and trepidation to her mind. Now that she had found him she didn't want to let him go; wasn't sure she could. It's hard to release something so wonderful once you've grasped it and even harder to survive the emptiness it leaves behind. But it wasn't up to her, it was up to him. It wasn't fair for her to beg him to stay when he needed to leave. He needed to find his own way and sort out his own heart – decide what it was he truly wanted. She prayed he would come to realize how much he loved her but she would never push him.

          Willow had to be strong and let Angel go.

_"Can you hear me?_

_Can you feel me in your arms?_

_Holding my last breath, safe _

_inside__ myself are all my thoughts_

_of__ you."_

          It tore her apart, watching him suffer in silent turmoil – tortured by his own doing and refusing her help. Sitting alone in his darkened office Angel mourned the death of his once true love: Buffy. Willow watched him slip away from her and wept for him but she could do nothing. He must fight this battle alone.

          "I hate this," she admitted to Cordelia.

          The former cheerleader turned seer placed her hand over Willow's and squeezed it reassuringly. "Give him time, Willow."

          Shaking her head the hacker turned witch turned tear-filled eyes to her friend. "I'd give him eternity."

          Cordelia saw the pain Willow was in and wrapped her arms around the redhead, hugging her while she cried. The brunette seer hadn't needed a vision to see the love Willow held for Angel – it sat like an open book to any who really looked. When exactly Willow had fallen in love with the souled vampire Cordelia didn't know but guessed it had started shortly after Angel had settled down in Los Angeles. He had kept contact with Willow via email over the years to keep tabs on Buffy, though he always denied it, but as time past Angel stopped asking after Buffy and grew more interested in Willow. Cordelia had watched the transformation with a smile on her lips, always knowing it was Willow Angel phoned so often and Willow he spent so many hours thinking about. Wesley had been oblivious at first but after a while Cordelia clued him in and all his employers peculiarities started to make sense.

          As time passed, Willow started making trips up to LA to visit Angel and she soon became a regular at the hotel and fast friends with Angel's new employees: Gunn and Lorne.

_"Sweet raptured light it ends_

_here__ tonight._

_I'll miss the winter a world_

_of__ fragile things."_

          When Buffy had died, giving her life in place of Dawn's, it was Willow who volunteered to deliver the news to Angel. No one argued. Xander never liked Angel, Giles still begrudged him Jenny's death, Spike had always hated him and been jealous of him, Dawn was far too young and neither Anya nor Tara knew him. Willow was the most logical choice and she dreaded it. She did nothing but weep while driving to LA and never knew if her tears were shed for Buffy or Angel or both of them. Willow knew what the news would do to Angel, what it would to 'them', but he deserved to know. Buffy had been his soul mate, once upon a time, he had and would always love her.

          Willow was forced to step out of the picture and let Angel fly on his own wings.

          "You're not looking so good, Red."

          Willow shrugged and wiped the drying tears from her cheeks while fresh ones fell anew. "Not feeling so good either."

          Gunn gently touched Willow's shoulder. "He'll come around."

          "I'd like to believe it," Willow whispered. "But you never saw their love, never saw the way he looked at her, cherished her. Buffy was Angel's world. His salvation. You never saw the power of their love and devotion to each other, I did and I'm so scared that he'll try to cling to that and push me away."

_"Look for me in the white forest_

_hiding__ in a hollow tree I know you_

_hear__ me I can taste it in your tears."_

          He was getting worse. He stopped eating, stopped speaking, just sat in his darkened office with the door locked starring at the wall. Alongside him Willow grew worse and her pain began to slowly eat at her. Dark nightmares tortured her sleep and her body cried out in agony. For days on end she lay in bed, writhing and moaning out an ache that existed only in her mind. Willow tormented herself as Angel did and willed her own body to feel his pain. Willow suffered as Angel did and still he never flinched.

          "Willow you have to stop doing this to yourself."

          Pale and sweating Willow cried and convulsed beneath her bed sheets. "It hurts," she sobbed. "It hurts so much."

          "_You_ created the pain," Wesley said frantically, "and you stop it."

          "He hurts. I hurt."

          But Angel ached for Buffy, longed for Buffy and Willow ached with a broken heart, knowing that he would never truly belong to her. Angel was Buffy's but Willow was his.

_"Holding my last breath safe inside_

_myself__ are all my thoughts of you._

_Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight."_

          Darkness had consumed her. Death reached out to her, calling to her with words of silk and she reached back. Willow felt Angel slipping, felt him falling deeper and deeper into his grief. He would mourn Buffy until the end of time and Willow would always stand in the shadows. She had let him go and she was now paying the price. How hard she believed that he would find his way back to her; that he would come to see that his place was at her side. But he had lost himself in death and Angel was now beyond Willow's reach.

          Yet still she clung to her love for him and still did she suffer for him.

          "Darlin' you need to snap out of this."

          "I can see him dreaming of her. Wanting her. Loving her. But she's gone and I'll be there when he finally comes to know his love for me." Willow was raving, lost in her own madness and to her friends.

          "Willow you can't help him if you lose yourself," Lorne tried to convince her.

          "He's the one lost but I'll find him."

_"Closing your eyes to disappear_

_you__ pray your dreams will leave_

_ you here but still you wake and _

_know__ the truth: no one's there."_

          She felt the spark inside of her die out. Felt the cold emptiness of her hollow shell. She could no longer feel him. He was gone. Willow screamed and clawed at the sheets that entangled her. Frantically she searched inside herself for him, for his presence. But there was nothing but echoing darkness and her world crumbled. Existence had suddenly lost its meaning and life seemed only cruel.

          He had left her, abandoned her to her own pain. He had left his life behind for _her_ – to find _her_ and be with _her_. Angel had forgotten Willow and her heart fell pieces, carved apart and sprinkled with salt. Unbearable flames consumed her and she cried out for death. Her life was his and he was gone.

          She was nothing without him and so she went in search of him.

          "Oh god!"

          Cordelia screamed, Wesley starred in horror, Gunn cursed and slammed his fist against the wall, Lorne wept silent tears. They could do nothing.

          Angel, when they found him, was no more than a pile of dust upon his chair – an empty bottle of holy water dropped to the floor. He had ended his own grief by giving in to it and turning his back to those who loved him. Willow lay pale, starring at her ceiling, her wrist hovering above a pool of blood. She had wound her existence with his and had felt his life end. She couldn't bare the pain of a life without him and so followed him to the grave leaving only four words, scribbled across the wall in blood-colored lipstick, for her friends to find: "I've given him eternity."

_"Say goodnight._

_Don't be afraid._

_Calling me, calling me_

_as__ you fade to black."_


End file.
